Cicero Quotes

226 Sourced Quotes

It is difficult to set bounds to the price unless you first set bounds to the wish.

Cicero
The happiest end of life is this: when the mind and the other senses being unimpaired, the same nature which put it together takes asunder her own work.

Cicero
If a man should ascend alone into heaven and behold clearly the structure of the universe and the beauty of the stars, there would be no pleasure for him in the awe-inspiring sight, which would have filled him with delight if he had had someone to whom he could describe what he had seen.

Cicero
Exile is terrible to those who have, as it were, a circumscribed habitation; but not to those who look upon the whole globe but as one city.

Cicero
The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.

Cicero
No one dies too soon who has finished the course of perfect virtue.

Cicero
For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate.

Cicero
In fact the whole passion ordinarily termed love (and heaven help me if I can think of any other term to apply to it) is of such exceeding triviality that I see nothing that I think comparable with it.

Cicero
Nature shrinks from destruction.
In Latin: Ab interitu naturam abhorrere

Cicero
Nor do I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I think I was not born in vain, and I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home.

Cicero
As in the case of wines that improve with age, the oldest friendships ought to be the most delightful.

Cicero
It is the soul itself which sees and hears, and not those parts which are, as it were, but windows to the soul.

Cicero
For if that last day does not occasion an entire extinction, but a change of abode only, what can be more desirable? And if it, on the other hand, destroys and absolutely puts an end to us, what can be preferable to having a deep sleep fall on us in the midst of the fatigues of life and, being thus overtaken, to sleep to eternity?

Cicero
There is a certain virtue in every good man, which night and day stirs up the mind with the stimulus of glory, and reminds it that all mention of our name will not cease at the same time with our lives, but that our fame will endure to all posterity.

Cicero
There are certain minute particles, some smooth, others rough, some round, some angular, some curved or hookshaped, and others that heaven and earth were created from these, not by compulsion of any natural law but by a sort of accidental colliding.

Cicero
But if you should take the bond of goodwill out of the universe no house or city could stand, nor would even the tillage of the fields abide. If that statement is not clear, then you may understand how great is the power of friendship and of concord from a consideration of the results of enmity and disagreement. For what house is so strong, or what state so enduring that it cannot be utterly overthrown by animosities and division?

Cicero
For one day spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to an eternity of error.

Cicero
Every generous action loves the public view; yet no theatre for virtue is equal to a consciousness of it.

Cicero
Wars, therefore, are to be undertaken for this end, that we may live in peace, without being injured; but when we obtain the victory, we must preserve those enemies who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity during the war.

Cicero
Somehow or other no statement is too absurd for some philosophers to make.

Cicero
Who does not know history's first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice?

Cicero
We should never so entirely avoid danger as to appear irresolute and cowardly; but, at the same time, we should avoid unnecessarily exposing ourselves to danger, than which nothing can be more foolish.

Cicero
In a promise, what you thought, and not what you said, is always to be considered.

Cicero
You tell us that Democritus says that there are a countless number of worlds, and that there are some which are not only so like one another, but so completely and absolutely equal in every point, that there is no difference whatever between them, and that they are quite innumerable; and so also are men.

Cicero
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum. (Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.)

Cicero